Residency Projects II
Kala Gallery is proud to present the second of our two-part exhibition series, Residency Projects, featuring work by our 2010-2011 Fellowship artists. The Kala Directors in association with juror Jens Hoffman, curator and Director of the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts at the California College of the Arts, selected the artists. Fellows Maude Léonard-Contant, Genevieve Quick, Youngsuk Suh and Frances Young were presented earlier this summer in Residency Projects I.
Kala Fellowships are awarded annually to nine innovative artists working in printmaking, photography, book arts, installation, video and digital media. Fellowship artists are selected from a competitive field of applicants from North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia. Recipient artists receive a financial award and up to six-months residency at Kala’s studio facility followed by an exhibition of their new work.
Elisheva Biernoff presents a new work titled Long Story Short, a screen printed picture book based on the graphic idiom of a children’s book. The book depicts the gradual disappearance of houses from a scenic hillside as a natural disaster engulfs the landscape. A luxury hotel replaces the missing homes and underscores our vulnerability in the face of unpredictable forces. The book project is accompanied by hand-painted vintage US stamps. Elisheva attended Yale, Slade School of Fine Art in London and recently received her MFA from California College of the Arts. Elisheva’s work has been presented in the Bay Area at Triple Base Gallery, Pro Arts and Headlands Center for the Arts.
Renée Gertler’s work imaginatively explores the relationship between sculpture and photography. Inspired by NASA photography, Renée creates objects from simple materials that are subsequently photographed, recreating the source images based on this new content. The work investigates the slippage between the photographs and the objects as the line blurs between the two mediums. Renée’s work has been presented at Eleanor Harwood Gallery, Patricia Sweetow Gallery, Ping Pong Gallery and Southern Exposure. She attended Harvard and received her MFA from California College of the Arts and had residencies at MacDowell and Kohler Arts and Industry. She was also the recipient of a Danish Arts Council Grant.
Jessica Ingram’s Work in Progress Takes Timephotography examine signs and markers that express intention, hope, and failure as reflected in the contemporary American landscape. Daily life and ideology – whether religious, patriotic or poetic – are revealed in Jessica’s images of what is held dear, what is left behind and what has failed. Jessica’s work has been presented at the Oakland Museum, the Ogden Museum, New York Photo Festival, SF Camerawork, Newark Museum and USC’s Fisher Museum of Art. She attended New York University and received her MFA from California College of the Arts.
Jennie Ottinger’s loosely painted portraits often depict a cast of quirky outsiders. Her project—created at Kala—has ventured into new territory with a video animation based on her paintings. Based on the novel Candide, Jennie has painted portraits of the story’s characters, cut the paintings into small pieces and reassembled the portraits in a whimsical fashion that tells a tragic story. The video meshes an unlikely combination of classic literature, humor, and angst—achieved with a hand-crafted simplicity. Jennie’s work has been presented at Johansson Projects, Adobe Books, UC Berkeley’s Worth Ryder Gallery, Southern Exposure and Headlands Center for the Arts. She attended California College of the Arts and received her MFA from Mills College.
Zachary Royer Scholz‘s work—produced during his residency—explores the intersection of photography and sculpture. By creating works that are both photographic-sculptures and sculptural-photographs, Scholz has created “spaces” that challenge our traditional perceptual responses and call into question the ways in which we experience the world. Scholz’s work has been presented in the Bay Area at CCA’s Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, Baer Ridgway Exhibitions, NOMA Gallery, Swarm Gallery, The Lab, Oakland Art Gallery, and Intersection for the Arts. He recently completed a residency and exhibition at Recology in San Francisco. Zachary attended Stanford University, and received his MA and MFA from California College of the Arts.